Yes, people did report this to the business crime division of Polish police. With regard to his liability this will unlikely be criminal and currently it is treated as a case of safeguarding evidence for a civil case. bitomat.pl didn't charge any fees because it didn't have proper legal framework to do so. Apparently he sustained the expenses by keeping the PLN balance in overnight certificates of deposit. PLN funds weren't lost and both deposits and withdrawals are processed promptly.

But this is actually bullish news for BTC, 17000 BTC has just been destroyed, this should increase the value of the rest of the BTC by almost 2%.

It's not really good news, the decrease in supply is dwarfed by the increases of anxiety over bitcoin.

If you are a relatively new investor to bitcoin and read about the 25l stolen, the mtgox hack, third biggest exchange loses all it's coin, mtgox shows coins at 1.3 million each, the dwolla charge back hack and mybitcoin one of the largest and most recommended online wallet services went dark this weekend and their doesnt seem to be any way to contact the owner or any info on it.

This is a dark day for the coin, and this shit needs to stop happening for it to become mainstream. A stock exchange can fall but they will still eventually find your stocks. These coins just vanished.

Unfortunately you are so right.

This is not the confidence investors, traders and normal people interested in bitcoins need to buy some.

If I heard those failures of the exchanges back in fall 2010, I would not be here now. I would have never entered bitcoins in such an unstable exchange mess.

>15years analysis experience

Always do your own due diligence & consult your financial advisor. Never invest unless you can afford to lose your entire investment.

You know where you find your car after it got stolen? (you can replace car with any good you want )

Oh I know another one:

Why do Russians always steal 2 cars in Germany?

- Because on the way home, they have to pass through Poland!

Anyways:Maybe it still can somehow be recovered? Pay the hoster to rip out the HDD asap and run some undelete programs... I don't know which infrastructure they used though, so it might or might not help.

Edit:Ok, read the statement... where exactly does it state how many BTC were lost? It only says, bitomat.pl is for sale for 17 000 BTC, not that 17k have been "flushed".

They try to sell bitomat.pl for 17 000 BTC to give back people their money

No they are still where they were. As I understand the current plan is to convert lost bitcoins into shares of a new for profit venture that will take over managing and operating bitomat.pl. They are planing on introducing transaction fees and use the dividend to pay off the owners of the lost coins.

Apparently new venture is going to be some sort of a merger/takeover using some yet unspecified going concerns from Poland and U.K.

This is unlikely to end well. In addition, there's a good chance of both:

This actually being a scam and the coins liquidized at some arbitrary point in the future

An angry investor taking the head of the one responsible

Unless, of course, they have a backing insurance that will cover this? That's the way this is normally done, since the insurance people would probably take the job of investigating and thus securing against theft, while paying those who otherwise have been screwed by the exchange.

But this is actually bullish news for BTC, 17000 BTC has just been destroyed, this should increase the value of the rest of the BTC by almost 2%.

It's not really good news, the decrease in supply is dwarfed by the increases of anxiety over bitcoin.

If you are a relatively new investor to bitcoin and read about the 25l stolen, the mtgox hack, third biggest exchange loses all it's coin, mtgox shows coins at 1.3 million each, the dwolla charge back hack and mybitcoin one of the largest and most recommended online wallet services went dark this weekend and their doesnt seem to be any way to contact the owner or any info on it.

This is a dark day for the coin, and this shit needs to stop happening for it to become mainstream. A stock exchange can fall but they will still eventually find your stocks. These coins just vanished.

Very true... Buttttt, for me I see it as an opportunity to get ready to buy some nice and cheap bitcoins before they rebound There's been a lot of bad events happening recently, but they're just teething stages... All the exchanges at the moment are still very amateur! With banks, if something like this happened, it would be hushed away and nobody would know about it... There's insurances to cover things.

Rumor has it that it isn't the head of the operator that's in danger. Some of the lost BTC apparently belonged to the people who are not above breaking bones or cutting fingers to collect the debts. They cannot afford to let it slide.

Wouldn't the exchange owner be criminally liable for the losses because of not exercising reasonable care? Has anyone filed a police report?

Criminal negligence in the death of a bitcoin?

Plausible since I consider anyone spilling a beer to be an alcohol abuser.

But, I don't think you can criminalize stupidity, but I'm sure you can make it liable.

I am interested to see how this plays out as well. The intentions seem in order and the rumored proposed plan would seem to be a best case solution and may have merit insofar as 'rumors' and 'proposed plans' go.

I'm thinking the backup exists, but is being held in secret, to be liquidated at some (far?) future date.

Perhaps, but these exchanges and wallet sites suddenly going under and Bitcoin being particularly depressed atm is too much of a coincidence. I suspect its more a case of these sites having spent coins they were holding (similar to what fiat banks do) and the owners of the coins are calling on their accounts to withdraw and sell and the money simply doesnt exist anymore to meet all the requests. I doubt would be seeing this picture atm if the value of BTC was $30 or more...

But this is actually bullish news for BTC, 17000 BTC has just been destroyed, this should increase the value of the rest of the BTC by almost 2%.

It's not really good news, the decrease in supply is dwarfed by the increases of anxiety over bitcoin.

If you are a relatively new investor to bitcoin and read about the 25l stolen, the mtgox hack, third biggest exchange loses all it's coin, mtgox shows coins at 1.3 million each, the dwolla charge back hack and mybitcoin one of the largest and most recommended online wallet services went dark this weekend and their doesnt seem to be any way to contact the owner or any info on it.

This is a dark day for the coin, and this shit needs to stop happening for it to become mainstream. A stock exchange can fall but they will still eventually find your stocks. These coins just vanished.

I'm thinking the backup exists, but is being held in secret, to be liquidated at some (far?) future date.

Perhaps, but these exchanges and wallet sites suddenly going under and Bitcoin being particularly depressed atm is too much of a coincidence. I suspect its more a case of these sites having spent coins they were holding (similar to what fiat banks do) and the owners of the coins are calling on their accounts to withdraw and sell and the money simply doesnt exist anymore to meet all the requests. I doubt would be seeing this picture atm if the value of BTC was $30 or more...

I also think that some of the problems are stemming from what were effectively hobby businesses which required little time and attention a few months ago now having greatly increased user bases. Small businesses often don't scale well, especially if they've been forced to scale without preparation - which is pretty much what happened when the price started soaring a few months back. Things which weren't major issues a few months back now affect a lot of users and there aren't necessarily adequate plans in place to deal with large scale problems.

It's highly possible - perhaps even probable - that these services were under-capitalised to begin with and that their business plans didn't allow for their user bases expanding so dramatically so soon. If that's the case, things going to hell in a hand basket isn't a "co-incidence" - it's an almost inevitable outcome of poor planning. Most small businesses ultimately fail and there's no reason to expect that the small businesses which have emerged to service the Bitcoin market are immune to the problems which affect small business in general. People need to keep that in mind when choosing to place large amounts of money and/or Bitcoins with these services, because some of them will go under.

All I can say is that this is Bitcoin. I don't believe it until I see six confirmations.